solitude and celebration

 There aren't many hours of solitude as a homeschooling parent or as the parent of a young child. You learn not to expect them, but it doesn't mean you don't sometimes long for them. After my post the other day, about the melancholy of this season, I was able to carve some long moments for myself that were so restorative.   The melancholy serves a creative, juicy purpose, if you have time to lend to it, and it doesn't take much.  While Dan was putting the girls to bed, I washed the dishes, staring at a cluttered and musty windowsill altar space that hadn't been consciously tended to for a couple of seasons at least. In the time it took me to clear the sill, wash it, dust its inhabitants, and carefully select a few things to put back up, my mind cleared, my heart lifted. I followed that with a long look at some old photo albums that actually made me laugh out loud (me as a girl scout, making doll-head tissue box holders with fake fur for hair for the lucky residents of the local nursing home.  me dressed for Halloween as frog eggs. a terrified me riding a pony, accompanied by my little peanut of a sister, who is doubled over laughing at my terror, as my feet almost reach the ground, yet I am hanging on for dear life. for starters.)  Restorative. I was ready for another day of Life!

Good thing, as the next day was my birthday! And since it was my birthday, this is how I got to spend it...

Ha ha!! Can you BELIEVE it?! I was giddy.

We spent most of the day with our friends-in-the-woods, who joked that they had "spored" the woods for me, in celebration of my birthday. The "golf course" was blanketed...HOLY WAH!!!!

 More of my beloved earth stars! Dozens of them! So tiny, and perfect...

 I was in good company. Maybe it was 'cause it was my birthday, but my love of the fungus was much indulged...Imagine me, chortling, eyes gleaming, prancing about s-l-o-w-l-y, trying not to step on anything but not wanting to miss a one! Hee hee!! Ha ha!!

dear E

 

Can you think of a more auspicious start of a new year for me? The reminder that with the rain comes great bounty? That just when you've imagined yourself into a corner, there are explosions of color and variety just waiting for you to shift your perspective and really look.

 

We celebrated mushrooms. We celebrated friendship with good food and wine and belly laughs.  My family loved me from morning till night - starting with a good cup of coffee in bed, through the gift of Mushrooms Demystified, through a walk and snuggles and my husband cooking up a storm, which he isn't always around to do with us...it was a lovely, lovely birthday. Forty-two.

Pretty awesome.